


Letter Written in Darkness

by Anna_Hopkins



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Dark Harry Potter, Manipulative Dumbledore, Mentor Voldemort, Mentor/Protégé, Necromancy, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Parselmagic, Parselscript, Parseltongue, Sane Tom Riddle, Sane Voldemort, Slow To Update, some Dumbledore bashing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-03
Updated: 2017-05-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 11:53:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 5,780
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9180394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Anna_Hopkins/pseuds/Anna_Hopkins
Summary: In the days after the Battle at the Ministry, Harry takes unexpected action -- action that might just change everything.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> 12/2/2017: PLEASE NOTE - I've posted my rewritten version of this series. It can be found on my profile. This one will remain marked as incomplete.

...He had the strangest feeling that there was someone standing right behind the veil  
on the other side of the archway. Gripping his wand very tightly, he edged around the dais,  
but there was nobody there. All that could be seen was the other side of the tattered black veil.

"Harry, let's go, okay?" said Hermione more forcefully.

"Okay," he said, but he did not move. He had just heard something.  
There were faint whispering, murmuring noises coming from the other side of the veil.  
"Can't anyone else hear it?" Harry demanded, for the whispering and murmuring was becoming  
louder; without really meaning to put it there, he found his foot was on the dais.

And Harry saw the look of mingled fear and surprise on his godfather's wasted,  
once-handsome face as he fell through the ancient doorway and disappeared behind the veil,  
which fluttered for a moment as though in a high wind and then fell back into place.

"There's nothing you can do, Harry...nothing...He's gone."

 

i.

Hogwarts in June was still slightly chilly at night, somehow. Now, after waking up from the same nightmare, the third time in as many hours, Harry caught the chill on his sweaty skin and slipped out of his bed to shower. Sleep wasn't worth it -- best to walk until the sun came up. The pacing would help him think, too, he hoped.

Harry had known the nights would be hard; he had seen a lot of this before. He still held onto the wish of sleeping without Dreamless Sleep potions someday, just as he wished the Headmaster would stop using him as a pawn on the chessboard for the war. Now _that_ was a grudge worth keeping around.

When he checked the time after his shower, it was just after midnight, so he stuffed his valuables into his schoolbag and got dressed for a long walk under the Cloak, simmering with unresolved anger.

He was done being Dumbledore's pawn, or protege, or whatever the old bastard called him in that voice designed to sound comforting. No, nothing was going to convince him to return to the role he'd been set up in now. Not when he could _see_ , just a little, his place on the chessboard. Even when he knew he was seeing only the very tip of the iceberg of Dumbledore's plans, Harry did not expect any good to come out of the rest of it.

Fumbling in the dark for a quill to put in his bag, Harry bumped his hand into a pile of blank parchment that fell all over the floor. A flare of annoyance became the outlet for his personal rage - a moment later, the parchment was ash. _How am I supposed to get out from under Dumbledore's hand with just this?_ The effort would be wasted if he failed. He'd only just _started_ trying to think for himself, and it was frustrating the life out of him.

A sudden idea led to him leaving the dorm through the open window, on his newly reclaimed Firebolt, instead of using the door. He flew around the castle, up to what was just about the seventh floor, and managed to open another window on that floor from the outside. Harry paced back and forth in the hall outside the Room of Requirement, asking it for the solution to his problem. Apparently it was specific enough, this one time, and a stone door appeared in front of him that led into a darkened room.

 _I need to do something to level the playing field, or better, overthrow it entirely,_ he thought. As he did, pacing the center of the room, blue torch lights flared into being, revealing a large desk stacked with ink and parchment of various colours. Harry realized the Room had thought of it before him: he grabbed stationery and a quill from the desk, and let his hand move without really thinking about it. A curious sensation stirred in his gut, a countercurrent gentle as the fabric of the Veil, as he stared at the swirling lines before him, understanding vaguely coming across despite it being illegible.

It was Parseltongue, in written form.

From there, a sudden calm washed over him. Harry sat at the desk to pen a letter that would not have occurred to him before. The so-called _wrongness_ of what he was doing conflicted sharply with exactly how _right_ it felt: it was the one thing he could do to free himself from the bonds of destiny, and from those formless figures that reached out for him in his nightmares (and seemed too real to be dreams). This was something no one would ever have expected him to do.

He wrote a letter to the Dark Lord in the Parsel-script, and mailed it off.

~

Peter Pettigrew woke with a start to the insistent rap of a bright white owl at his window in Gloucestershire. A pair of letters were tied to its foot -- one addressed to him, the other blank. He opened his letter first, cautiously, and read, in a sharp script,

_Pay the debt you owe me. Bring this to the Dark Lord._

 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Edited/updated 9-24-2017)

The safe-house (or rather, safe-manor) in Little Hangleton had been warded heavily enough that only Wormtail could get in, and only because he was allowed; all rooms save the study and the entrance hall were still locked to him. The Dark Lord had no need for regular visitors here, and rarely expected to see Wormtail either, much less the Death Eaters in general – they feared him too much to request an audience. _Though,_ mused Voldemort, _Wormtail is compelled to visit every so often to report._ His silver hand bound him to such actions – though he wrung his hands and stuttered pathetically, the slovenly wizard could not keep information from his Lord, and this time, that information was a letter.

A letter, of all things. How delightfully unexpected.

Wormtail held the parchment out in his metal hand within casting distance of the Dark Lord’s armchair for detection charms, though they sadly revealed nothing this time. Voldemort waited until the man’s distasteful presence exited the wards, before he opened the letter; Nagini took that moment to enter the room and coil about her wizard’s shoulders, and she was just as surprised as he to see the message was in Parseltongue.

_May this reach the Heir of Slytherin;  
I mean no harm._

The H at the bottom looked like a twisted serpent’s tongue. And Parselscript…

“ _The scent of the boy-foe is strong on this letter,_ ” murmured Nagini, nosing the parchment. “ _It appears to be…legitimate._ ” She flicked her tongue over it, remarking on the mix of emotions that lay within the boy’s scent – anger, exhaustion, grief – and asked, “ _How do you plan to respond?_ ”

~

Harry had wondered how long it would be before his letter reached the Dark Lord – or if it had been simply cast into the flames. But several hours later, as he picked wearily at his breakfast, his peculiar correspondence continued: the owl that carried the Daily Prophet had a second parchment tied to its leg. Harry took that off as he paid the owl, and hid the response in his pocket without bringing attention to it; he would read it in the Room of Requirement when the Great Hall began to empty out.

This time the Room gave him a high-ceilinged study with a small fireplace beside the mahogany desk. In the firelight, the ink took on a metallic shine, and there were faint designs on the ink in the writing itself – a pattern like serpent scales. That was plenty to confirm his message had gotten through, even without a signature. Harry’s scar tingled painlessly when he brushed his fingers over the opened paper.

_May this reach the Boy-Who-Lived,  
from Number Three Chardrey, Old Ammett, Essex._

He stiffened, realizing he’d just been given a return address, probably warded for secrecy. It was in Parselscript, which was probably part of how it had gotten through whatever filter was keeping Harry’s mail monitored for threats and hate mail (and, considering Dumbledore, plenty else besides). Rereading the sincere response set him in the right mood to properly compose the longer letter he now was able to send; he shifted closer to the hearth, and began to lay out a response in dark green ink.

~

It rather bemused Voldemort to suddenly have formal correspondence with his prophesized vanquisher, so out of the blue. Then again, when the Death Eater stationed at Number Three in Chardrey Hamlet returned as quickly as he did to the communications building, with a much longer letter this time, the Dark Lord supposed that the battle at the Ministry had probably changed the boy dramatically. In the hours after the battle, when the mental link between them was finally being reined in, he had glimpsed the destruction of Dumbledore’s office trinkets through Potter’s eyes and felt the pure hatred the young wizard felt for the man.

He took the letter back to the private headquarters and opened it with Nagini there to read over his shoulder. She mocked him for a moment for suspecting anything of the first letter, when she could tell who had sent it, before reading the Parselscript over his shoulder.

_May this reach the Heir of Slytherin – to whom, with fortune, this letter arrives._

_In the time since our brief meeting in public, I have recognized the falsehoods in my knowledge of the past and present. Your opponent has lied to me for the very last time. I will no longer be played as his chesspiece._

_The following is what I know to be certain: S.T.S. is playing two sides, “and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives…the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…”_

_From 4 Privet Drive, Little Whinging, Surrey, with open arms._

~

The Dark Lord’s pale fingers shook slightly as he read the prophecy a second time. If that really was the rest of it – “ _There is no trace of lies on this parchment,_ ” Nagini insisted – then the boy had given away his entire hand, hadn’t he? But that last line, ‘with open arms’, made him wonder. It sounded like a _wards key_. Why would Potter give him this?

Nagini nosed at a second, smaller page that had fallen to the floor while he read the first. _“This one smells of fear,_ ” she murmured, confused. In shaky handwriting rather unlike what had preceded it, the note added,

_They are watching me, and the voices beyond the Veil speak my name from the shadows.  
Even death is freedom. Please tell me – am I going mad?_

…What?


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Updated 9-24-2017)

_‘Please tell me. Am I going mad?’_

The Dark Lord stared at the page for more than an hour, thinking. Nagini coiled about his shoulders, attempting to relieve him of tension when she sensed his alarm. Eventually, he murmured, shakily, “…he would not believe he was sane, from what he is hearing. We must act quickly – this is much more immediate than the war…”

~

Harry shivered at the sight of Sirius’ mirror in the pile of things at the bottom of his trunk. Shards of the glass were strewn about with bits of quills and parchment scraps and dust. He didn’t want to think about that night anymore, he _really_ didn’t; feeling awful, he began to pile his clothes into the trunk haphazardly, if only to cover up the bad thoughts. No need to pack neatly; he wouldn’t be opening it again till September if the Dursleys had their say on the matter.

The knowledge that he’d keyed the Dark Lord into the wards, with a plea for help, did calm Harry a little, insofar as he might hope for a quick death over a slow one.

When he’d just managed to close the trunk, Hedwig alighted on the windowsill with an eagle owl beside her, the both of them hooting softly at him. The unfamiliar owl eyed Harry with a refined air, a stately patience; at least, up until the moment the letter was off its ankle, at which point it took off in an undignified flurry of wings. Hedwig watched Harry with interest, eyeing the parchment he’d received, and then stepped delicately into her cage when he opened the hatch. Now that he was done packing, he looked over the parchment, which read,

_Tonight, then._

He allowed himself a genuine smile at that. It didn’t leave his face for the entire train ride, right up until he saw the Dursleys. But he only had a few hours before it would be over, one way or another. Vernon made the inexplicable decision to have him keep all his ‘weirdness’ in his room, instead of using the cupboard under the stairs for his trunk, which would make things much easier in a short while longer.

Harry managed a nap or two while the sun went down. Though they had gotten quieter, the voices still called him in his dreams.

~

Six Death Eaters had been sent to monitor the wards in the hours between Potter’s arrival and intended departure. They were to watch the entire street, reporting any energy changes in the area, and while Voldemort alone held the key to the wards on Number Four, the two teams could still let him know if any more spells were being cast in the interim.

Their reports confirmed all was unchanged when night finally fell; he decided on a whim to bring Nagini, and at dusk they Apparated under powerful Disillusionment to the next street over. The Dark Lord floated silently into the back garden of Number Four, and waited, motionless, for the last lights to turn off and for his Death Eaters to disperse from the area per their orders. Finally, it was time.

Nagini called for the Boy.

~

“ _It is time._ ” Harry started, realizing he’d been on the cusp of dreaming for at least an hour. The source of the voice that had called him was outside, he thought; he couldn’t see anything in the back garden from his window, but it had to have come from down there. He groped around blindly for Hedwig’s cage, finding it mostly by touch, and hoisted it up onto the windowsill next to his trunk. Lucky for him that the Lightening Charm on the trunk had continued to hold a little longer than he’d expected.

He carefully took the bars out of his window, then climbed out, cautiously securing a foothold on the small roof below the window before pulling the cage and the trunk out after him. Then there was the task of getting down to the garden from the roof, which Harry had only tried twice before; he managed it after a moment’s hesitation, and turned to scan the garden for the Dark Lord he knew must be there. At first, there was nothing in his vision except plants.

A moment later, the formidable wizard faded into view, letting go of the Disillusionment, and Harry barely suppressed a gasp – they’d been only a few feet from each other – at the glow of the red eyes that he could now see watching him. In the moonlight, the wizards stood at arm’s length from each other, and Nagini (eep) moved to cross the gap and link them bodily, before the pull of Apparition brought them somewhere else entirely.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for your patience. ♥ More to come.
> 
> (Updated 9-24-2017)

_...before the pull of Apparition brought them somewhere else entirely._

They emerged from the darkness of Apparition into a mossy clearing, surrounded on all sides by ancient trees. It was still midnight here, wherever they were; under the moon’s pale blue cast, every knot and gnarl in the wood seemed to take on the shape of something living, something watching, and Harry would have shuddered, if not for Nagini’s coils still tight about him.

The Dark Lord held up a hand, and the blue hue was overtaken by light red – as if illuminated from below. A distortion in the wall of wood before them manifested into a tall, wrought-iron gate, pushing the trees around it out of the way. Briefly, Harry remembered learning about these types of gates in Transfiguration; they led to “wizard space”, was all he could take note of before he was pulled forward by Nagini and into the gate.

And then, they were standing on the precipice of a high cliff overlooking a vast flattened moor. Warm winds whipped against Harry’s face, warmer than he would have expected given the predawn skies, and he looked down to see grass rippling in wide waves, far below.

“We are free to speak now,” said Voldemort somewhere in the periphery. “Shall we go down?” Nagini let go of them both and slithered off somewhere; now, the older wizard held out a hand for Harry, who took it warily. He had expected it to feel strange to the touch, bony or slimy or cold, perhaps – but it was just a hand, like any other, and Harry wondered how many things were _true_ about the Dark Lord nowadays.

They Apparated a second time – Harry wondered how the Dark Lord managed to make it so easy, when Dumbledore couldn’t – and were at the base of the cliff. Not far ahead of them loomed a stately manor, perhaps three stories tall, stark against the ambient light of the sky. The Dark Lord started a leisurely pace toward the manor, and Harry made to follow behind when the older wizard surprised him once again by insisting they walk side-by-side. “In this place,” he said, and Harry noticed his voice changing from high-pitched to a more human tone, “there are neither eavesdroppers nor spies; as such, those theatrics we put on for the public are unneeded. So I will regard you freely as my equal, which you are, and take off this costume, much as it might now have become familiar.” A nimbus of yellow light glowed briefly about him, and then the Dark Lord’s appearance had changed from the one Harry knew to a different appearance that, for all the younger wizard knew, might have been his original look.

It was a handsome face; that was obvious enough. It reminded Harry of the young Tom Riddle he’d met in second year, but grown up. Remembering the diary, he wondered at the magical power the man had at his fingertips. This man looked at _him_ as an _equal?_

Harry must have let his disbelief show on his face. The Dark Lord seemed amused as he went on, “Yes, an equal. Not because of a ‘prophecy’, though that might have been easier to believe – but because despite my public appearance, I am in fact quite sane, and I took your letter to heart.” He snapped his fingers, and the lights in the manor windows turned on, several paces ahead of them. “You called on _me_ , in a time of desperation, when after years of indoctrination, you might have been expected to do otherwise.” They paused before the front door; Voldemort took out his wand and drew a pattern on the door that probably involved the wards.

“A will as strong as yours is rare, even among the most magically endowed of Wizarding history. From the beginning, I had sensed that strength of will in you, more so every time we met in battle. For that reason alone I already thought of you as my equal. Then, you wrote to me of _chanting_ , after you saw the Veil.” Harry glanced up at the Dark Lord, accidentally meeting the man’s eyes; before he looked away, something seemed to flicker, flamelike, in the Dark Lord’s red irises. “What was the name the voices called you? When they echoed, as if from the abyss?”

As if to drown out Harry’s response the first time, a wind picked up and circled them at the doorstep, filling his ears with white noise. So Harry repeated it. In the back of his mind, he wondered how the Dark Lord had known of the nature of the echoes, when he had only briefly written of them.

“Hadrian.”

Voldemort seemed pensive, for a moment. “Hadrian,” he mused. “It is an intriguing name, to be certain. Marvolo was the name they gave me, when I was called.” _That answers the unspoken question,_ Harry supposed. “May I call you Hadrian, or would you prefer Harry?”

“Hadrian, please,” Harry said. He felt a little lightheaded for a moment, acknowledging it as his name. _Am I ‘Harry Hadrian James Potter’ now?_

“Then, please call me Marvolo. It will make more sense in a moment.” He opened the door to the manor, and Harry could see the glow of a fireplace at the far end of the darkened entrance hall, in some better-lit room.

“Welcome, Hadrian, to the Manor-on-the-Moors.”

~

Shortly thereafter, they were sitting in armchairs in the center of a large study, the paneled walls sparsely decorated save for a few bookshelves. Tall curtained windows looked out over the moors, and while the hearth glowed with blue flame, and torches lit the room with the same colour, the fire was soundless – Harry could hear the whispers of wind against the windowpanes, and his gaze was drawn out toward the moon setting in the west.

Marvolo – Harry found it easier to call him that, somehow – had set a large bottle of what looked like Muggle liquor on the table between them, with two heavy glasses beside it. “All right,” said the man, rolling his shoulders and stifling a yawn, “It’s best I start with the most important thing – the reason you heard the voices in the Veil, and the reason those voices call for you, is because sometime around that moment, you awakened an infamous magical trait that British wizards in particular fear like no other. It is, curiously, yet another thing we have in common.” He seemed to be steeling himself for the moment of exposition. “You, Hadrian, are a necromancer.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Minor changes made 9-24-2017)

Harry blinked.

In fact, he blinked several times, and reached, open-mouthed, for one of the heavy glasses Marvolo had filled, to take a sip of it. After a moment, he managed to at least stop gaping like an idiot; he almost asked if the man was _sure_ , as if that were a question. Instead, he asked something marginally less silly. “Does this mean resurrecting the dead _is_ possible?”

“Of course,” Marvolo answered, as if it didn’t surprise him to be asked that in the least. “It does require several living sacrifices, and strong focus, in order to conduct properly – but given enough practice in the arts, you could resurrect most anyone you wanted, so long as you know how to call for them.”

So Sirius _could_ come back. Harry almost laughed at how easy it sounded, how easily he could fix everything that had gone wrong this year. He almost hesitated at the idea of sacrificing other people for it, but set that concern aside in favor of the feeling of growing enthusiasm he had at the idea of his new…talent. Harry took another sip of the liquor, and found it evened out his energy a bit.

A silence had developed between them in the past minute or so while Harry processed what he had learned. Fortunately, Marvolo had no problem continuing to speak. “With necromancers as few and far between as they are nowadays – hidden in wizard space, most of them, just like ourselves – the most immediate and effective opportunity to learn the arts is here, with me.” He sipped from his glass, and stared into the alcohol for a moment, then looked back at Harry. “If you are willing to learn from me, on an informal basis, it would be my pleasure to teach you what I know. What do you think?”

Considering how much he had to gain, and how little he really had to lose at this point, Harry wasted no time in nodding his agreement. Marvolo seemed pleased by this, as if he hadn’t completely expected to be trusted – which was fair.

They toasted to the new arrangement, then sat in the parlor for about an hour more, till their glasses were empty and the sky was turning pink. With no one around to interrupt the pensive mood of the room, they passed the hour in silence. Marvolo was the first to stand, though he moved slowly; he showed Harry upstairs where the bedrooms were, and tired as Harry was, he picked the bedroom nearest to the stairs for the convenience. He bade Marvolo good night, closed the door behind him, and collapsed into the bed with no interest in seeing the room until he was awake.

~ 

Albus Dumbledore cast a weary glance over the table of witches and wizards that had assembled in their pyjamas in Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place. Several of them still nursed injuries from the battle in the Ministry not three days prior; the worst of the bunch were still in St. Mungo’s. Remus was passing out bottles of Sirius’ stash of Old Ogden’s Firewhiskey to anyone who wanted it, and quite a few did. Dumbledore decided to wait until he’d given them the bad news to open a bottle of his own. Or perhaps, two bottles.

He adjusted his glasses, and stood to address the Order at large. Though he added words here and there, the long and short of the matter was that somehow, under their very noses, Harry Potter had disappeared sometime in the past eight hours with no disturbances in the wards. No magical traces were present to indicate an attack or kidnapping, and Severus had no information to add from the Death Eater side of things when prompted; it seemed that the boy had simply up and disappeared, much as he had done in the summer of his third year.

After allocating tasks to the search parties, the Headmaster swept from the room in a shimmer of gaudy fabric and Disapparated back to his office to try and scry for Harry Potter again; with any luck, the previous attempt had failed on a fluke. But no – it failed again. And the third time he tried it, with more power behind it. Three avenues for investigation were now left open to them, the old wizard surmised: Harry was either behind very specific wards, was wearing the Invisibility Cloak, or was hidden somewhere outside the range of the scrying spell – in which case, they might never see him again.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Updated 9-24-2017, new chapters to follow sometime this week. Please see the notes at the end if you're waiting on the next chapter, I made a minor change recently that's worth noting)

Harry woke from deep and dreamless sleep to a heavy weight on his chest. It took him a long moment to remember where he was, and how he’d gotten there – by which point Nagini had all but coiled up in bed with him. _“Good morning, hatchling,_ ” she hissed softly. “ _Did you sleep well?_ ”

He squirmed under her, trying to sit up in the bed, but found he was not strong enough to do so, and flopped back against the mattress with half-joking resignation. Nagini regarded him with amusement, like a cat with a mouse, and moved aside to let him out from under the sheets. Harry hadn’t realized how intelligent the snake was before; he’d always thought Marvolo was puppeteering her. Not that he would dare mention it now. Instead, he tried to make decent conversation while he made the bed around her and looked around for the bathroom. He knew he was in desperate need of a proper bath – which was how he found himself under Nagini’s scrutiny as he stripped off the dirty Muggle clothing from the previous night and set it in a pile beside the hearth, to burn later.

 _"You have many scars, hatchling,_ ” she murmured. Harry thought of his lightning bolt scar, and how it hadn’t hurt in quite some time, despite him being in the same room as the Dark Lord for a few hours last night. He supposed he hadn’t noticed it before in the energy of the night, and decided not to worry about it now. No pain was good pain.

The door to the bathroom opened on a large tub; the toilet sat in an alcove on the side. It reminded Harry of the prefects’ bathroom from fourth year; he even glanced up to make sure there wasn’t a mermaid portrait on the wall. Marvolo must have designed it after the prefects’ bath in Hogwarts on purpose; hadn’t he been a prefect?

A shelf of potions in various bright colours caught Harry’s attention; each had a brief note on the contents and directions on how to use them, presumably written by Marvolo. Harry supposed he might as well give the stuff a try. One of the bottles, listed as “minor healing for surface injuries to the skin,” turned out to be the bubble bath soap from the prefects’ bath, and quickly became Harry’s favourite of the set.

He emerged from the bathroom to find his trunk sitting open by the bed, and Nagini nosing through it; she had apparently picked out his robes for him, as they lay somewhat disheveled on the bed. He didn’t remember the trunk being there when he woke up, and asked, puzzled, whether he’d just missed it, or if it had been moved.

 _“The house-elves moved it while you were in the water.”_ Nagini seemed to be looking him up and down. “ _Perhaps tomorrow I shall have you swim wit me,_ ” she continued. “ _Marvolo doesn’t much like to soak._ ”

It took him a moment to puzzle that one out while he buttoned up his shirt. Was he hearing it wrong, or had he just been flirted with by a snake?

 ~

Apparently Harry had woken up in the middle of the afternoon; the sun beamed warmly through the windows, making the kitchen seem warmer and more welcoming than Grimmauld Place’s kitchen had been. It was the windows, he decided, that really made the difference. No house-elves were in sight, and Harry didn’t feel inclined to look for them so soon after Kreacher’s betrayal, so he fixed himself a boiled egg, humming a tune. As he sorted through cabinets looking for salt, he caught Nagini watching the round morsel. “ _I can make an egg or two, for you,_ ” he offered. Her eyes seemed to sparkle at the idea.

Which was how Marvolo found him in the kitchen half an hour later peeling shells off of no less than two dozen boiled eggs, with Nagini watching over his shoulder. It was the first time Harry had heard the man laugh with his real voice. “I see you’ve become fast friends,” he chuckled, wiping his eye.

They sat (or in Nagini’s case, coiled) at the kitchen table for a late lunch, before Marvolo showed Harry to the main library to see the books. Harry could only stare at the arrangement for a moment – it was larger than Hogwarts’ library by double. Wall-to-wall shelves in dark lacquered wood bore small nameplates to distinguish sections, and there were books on almost any topic Harry could think of, from wandlore to Wizarding children’s tales, in varying states of age and distress. The largest collection, apparently, was the wall-and-a-half of shelves pertaining to the Dark Arts. “Many of these are written in Latin or Arabic,” Marvolo explained as Harry stared up at the high wall of shelves, “but a relatively simple runic circle will let you read them fluently, and my notes on necromancy and magical theory are in Parselscript, besides.” He levitated down a large tome which looked particularly well-cared-for. “Nagini is especially familiar with these notes, as she was present for much of the time I spent compiling them.”

Marvolo set the book down on a nearby table and snapped his fingers; a pair of house-elves, taller than most Harry had seen before, popped in without a sound. “The house-elves, Sigurd and Elath, are also familiar with the arrangement of the library, if you wish to ask them.” Marvolo’s house-elves were draped in black fabric, much unlike the rags Harry had seen on Dobby, Kreacher and the like. The one called Sigurd bowed slightly in Harry’s direction, before the two popped out of the room.

Just then, a small bell rang from somewhere in the house. “That would be my experiment,” murmured the older wizard. “I will be back in an hour or so. In the meantime, please make yourself at home.” He turned on the spot and Disapparated.

In the older wizard’s absence, the room suddenly seemed quite a bit larger than it had before. Nagini coiled up on the back of an armchair, watching Harry as he approached the bookshelves, fingers brushing over the spines of several old books before he settled into the armchair, picking Marvolo’s book off the side table. Behind him, cool light filtered through the sheer curtains, turning the dark leather cover a greyish blue.

The book itself was written out by hand, comprised of several separately-bound leaves of notes filed by topic. Harry wondered if the book had been charmed to weigh less than it ought. The first section was titled, _Disproving Theory on the Origins of Magic and the Light-Dark Dichotomy, in Six Simple Tests_ , with a list of citations below it that Harry was surprised to see included Nicholas Flamel.

He opened to the first page, but didn’t start reading yet; his mind was drawn to a niggling curiosity. He wondered if, before the wars, Marvolo had intended to share his research with the world. Dumbledore himself had said that the older wizard’s knowledge of magic was the greatest of any wizard alive. Hermione would be jealous of the book he was holding, Harry mused, but then again, would she even dare to look at it if she knew the author’s name?

His lips twitched at the idea of his friend shrieking and dropping the heavy tome on her foot. _She’d probably burn it_ , he thought. _Then again, a few months ago, so would I._

~ 

When the sun rose on the fourth day of Harry’s disappearance, Dumbledore stood from his desk with an irritated huff. They had no leads, no sightings, no witnesses – the boy had even escaped the tracking charms carefully laid into his trunk. The only thing they were still certain of was that the boy was still alive and healthy; the set of energetic little gadgets and gizmos on his desk all indicated it.

It rather irked him to know that, in fact, the boy’s health was even _better_ , wherever he had gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (Snakes don't normally eat boiled eggs. Nagini just happens to like them, and being a grown, independent magical serpent, she has made that decision for herself.)
> 
> Also: slight change from an earlier version of this chapter, Marvolo only needs a couple hours to tend to his experiments, not an entire day or two. Doesn't affect the plot much.

**Author's Note:**

> 9/24/2017: Tags updated. I've read enough truly exceptional Dark!Harry fics to know mine isn't *that* dark. Added "Slow to Update" tag -- I swear, I haven't abandoned the fic, I just keep writing bits and pieces with no way to string them together.


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